Here's your chance to ask one - or many! - questions of Glenn Greenwald, on all the biggest stories from the last month including: the AP Justice Department phone record seizures, the Boston bombings and the Guantánamo hunger strikes.

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Julian Assange, and others have heralded cryptography as the means for individuals to arm themselves against an overreaching surveillance state. Do you believe cryptography is becoming increasingly significant for journalists, or will become so in the future? What about for regular citizens?

Julian Assange, and others have heralded cryptography as the means for individuals to arm themselves against an overreaching surveillance state. Do you believe cryptography is becoming increasingly significant for journalists, or will become so in the future? What about for regular citizens?

I just don't know enough about that, or at least haven't thought enough about that, to give you a meaningful answer.

Do you have any theories as to how far the expansion of the US government's powers to abrogate Due Process, Privacy and First Amendment rights will go? Where and when does this end? Also wondering if you had any thoughts as to why this is happening; given the continuity of policy and the continued expansions of police state powers between the Bush and Obama administrations, I find it hard to believe this massive transformation of our rule of law is happening at this speed simply to fight terrorism.Thanks and please keep it up!

"There's no question that this "war" will continue indefinitely. There is no question that US actions are the cause of that, the gasoline that fuels the fire. The only question - and it's becoming less of a question for me all the time - is whether this endless war is the intended result of US actions or just an unwanted miscalculation."

Are you still on the fence whether endless war is the intended result of US actions?

Are you still on the fence whether endless war is the intended result of US actions?

It's a very hard question to answer for at least two reasons: (1) it's very difficult to talk about the "motive of the US government" because that's a huge entity composed of many different factions with conflicting motives and agendas, and (2) it's very difficult to discern our own motives, let alone other people's - even within a single person, motives are often complex and conflicting.

That said, it's clear that the US government is every bit as aware as I am or anyone else that perpetrating constant violence worsens, rather than improves,the threat of Terrorism. It's also clearly the case that numerous factions in the government (and those that own it) benefit in multiple ways from endless war, including the President: the founders warned about that dynamic more than two centuries ago.

Even with that knowledge, they continue to do exactly that which ensures ongoing tensions with large parts of the Muslim world. So at some point, the only rational conclusion is that at least some parts of the US government pursue these policies because of that, not despite it.

I hope Glenn answers this question and I would only add that, if so, he please try to specify what he would mean by "intended". That is the aspect that I find so confusing with this question. A great question, but, at times, I feel that by stating that it is intentional we get derailed because it is hard to prove that something as mammoth has a State addiction to perpetual war can be tied to a specific individuals conscious intention.

You've written a few times recently about prominent critics of religion (Sam Harris, Bill Maher) who have espoused the view that Islam is uniquely threatening. As an atheist myself, I agree that it's not fair to single out Islam as more dangerous than other religions, particularly in light of the fact that the War on Terror has been designed in many ways to intimidate and demonize Muslims, demonstrated pretty well by the NYPD spying scandal. And then there's the small matter of how the U.S. has imposed violence on a grand scale for the last decade in predominantly Muslim countries, and how Israeli settlers have rapidly escalated the use of violence against Palestinians in the West Bank in the last several years.

I'm wondering if you could address the role of religion in promoting violence. How important do you think religion is in explaining state- and non-state-sanctioned violence in the last decade? Whether or not different religions have inspired violence equally (and it seems clear that Harris/Maher think that Islam has been "more equal than others" in this regard), do you think religion is the most important factor explaining violence, or is it simply a convenient mechanism underlying bigger factors like a country's political structures, economic concerns, military interests, etc.?

Finally, you wrote on Twitter that Bill Maher's negative reaction to your comments on his show continued after the show was over. Care to drop any details about what he said? I'm reminded a little bit about how Chuck Todd scolded Jeremy Scahill off-stage after taping a "Real Time" episode in 2009 because Scahill made Todd look bad.

I'm wondering if you could address the role of religion in promoting violence. How important do you think religion is in explaining state- and non-state-sanctioned violence in the last decade?

In general, people need faith in a very strong cause to risk their lives for it. That could be nationalistic. It could be religious. Or it could be things like peer pressure, fear of shame, economic incentives, or fear of punishment.

Sometimes, religious conviction provides the incentive to risk one's life for a cause. I think the grievances of "Muslim extremists" against the US are overwhelmingly political, but the willingness to die for those grievances is often religious-based (a belief in an afterlife, the nobility of dying to fight against those persecuting your religion, etc.).

This has always been true. Christians fought lots of wars in defense of their faith. Many of the American revolutionaries were motivated by religious freedom. Japanese pilots in WW2 and lots of US soldiers have been motivated by nationalistic fervor. Something has to provide the willingness to kill others whom one doesn't know, and risk their lives to do so. Religion is one motive, but only one, and I don't think it's necessarily the most important.

Finally, you wrote on Twitter that Bill Maher's negative reaction to your comments on his show continued after the show was over. Care to drop any details about what he said? I'm reminded a little bit about how Chuck Todd scolded Jeremy Scahill off-stage after taping a "Real Time" episode in 2009 because Scahill made Todd look bad.

I probably shouldn't have said anything because it was my own perceptions more than anything else. He was perfectly cordial, if not a little distant, but did say something like: "I thought you were going to fight more with him" - pointing to Charles Cooke. Given the intensity of our exchange, he was perfectly polite afterward.

The geopolitical situation as well as the inner states of the characters involved are also all part of the overall reality within which violent acts take place.

Often, religion or democracy is used to give these acts some meaning and to make them seem their acts noble to them.

One would have to examine the authentic teachings of a religion to determine if it sanctions an act.

In case of Islam, one would need to use the Quran as the criterion to determine if an act is in fact Islamic, ie, if it is according to the teachings of Islam, since it is the primary source of the religion of Islam and therefore sets its parameters and framework.

But there's also over 1400 years of traditional scholarship that one can look at.

Religion is a potent force.

Use it properly, and it will produce positive results.

Use it incorrectly, and it will produce devastating results.

Using it properly means interpreting and applying it not only through its authentic sources, but also through the higher consciousness, whose attributes include, selflessness, compassion, reason, love, peace, justice, humility, forgiveness, etc.

Recently on Cenk Uygur's show you touched on a warning repeatedly issued by Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall:

"We know how the Obama administration is interpreting its surveillance powers. If the American public knew, they'd be shocked by how radical and extreme these activities are. We can't tell you because we'll go to prison if we do."

Regarding the bolded quote:

1) Do you really believe there is a credible threat of prison for sitting U.S. Senators who expose a presidential power grab so radical that it shocks and disgusts the voting public?

2) Under the current paradigm, presidents can break the law and effectively muzzle any member of Congress who has knowledge of it simply by stamping "SECRET" on the paperwork. How can this paradigm ever be broken until a senator or congressman is willing to defy the president and refuse to be muzzled by the SECRET stamp?

3) In the Bush years, if any member of Congress, after attending a classified briefing on torture, had decided to defy the president and reveal what he/she had heard, do you believe that person would have been prosecuted? To me, that seems very doubtful. I suspect that person would be a hero today.

PS – I'm aware that openly revealing classified information might be career suicide for a senator or congressman.

1) Do you really believe there is a credible threat of prison for sitting U.S. Senators who expose a presidential power grab so radical that it shocks and disgusts the voting public?

Without question - I have little doubt that if US Senators spilled what they learned in public from classified briefings - especially about the US eavesdropping capabilities - they would face serious criminal investigation if not prosecution.

That said, these Senators could do it from the floor of the Senate and be immune from prosecution. They would likely lose all access forever in the US Senate and standing with their party, but they could do it if they actually felt strongly enough.

If Bradley Manning and Daniel Ellsberg risked life in prison to blow the whistle, why can't/shouldn't they risk their Intelligence Committee seats?

2) Under the current paradigm, presidents can break the law and effectively muzzle any member of Congress who has knowledge of it simply by stamping "SECRET" on the paperwork. How can this paradigm ever be broken until a senator or congressman is willing to defy the president and refuse to be muzzled by the SECRET stamp?

One way would be for Senators to break it the way I just described. It's also against the law to abuse classified powers to conceal wrongdoing - some prosecutions would obviously help.

In your opinion, in this day in age can the law alone (more specifically the legal system to which it applies) ever be used to achieve any meaningful change, in government action and corporate responsibility, or must mass outrage precede or parallel it?

For instance; Does AP have any chance of setting a precedent, and limiting these types of actions (Stolen/Stored private calls, whistleblower/journalist intimidation) in the legal system or is it so corrupted and subservient to the executive, that any challenge will be immediately shut down on national sec. grounds or legally stifled into a Non-existence, among other processes to circumvent all meaningful legal accountability?

In your opinion, in this day in age can the law alone (more specifically the legal system to which it applies) ever be used to achieve any meaningful change, in government action and corporate responsibility, or must mass outrage precede or parallel it?

The law is worthless if, as has been the case, the most powerful factions are largely exempt from its mandates. Actually, in that case, it's worse than worthless: it becomes a powerful weapon for entrenching power.

Until there is real public outrage over this, that won't change, but I think both the (early rendition of) the Tea Party movement and the Occupy movement were fueled by anger of this fact more than any other, as they both emerged from anger over the protection rather than punishment of Wall Street by the US government in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

Now that the Justice Department's contempt for journalism is explicit, do you think mainstream news organizations will do a better job of covering individual cases of journalist persecution, such as Barrett Brown (105 years for among other things, hiding a laptop w/ sources and work product on it and copy & pasting a link to source materials) or is this naïve, wishful thinking?

Unfortunately, the answer is no. Most mainstream journalists still maintain a corrupt division in their heads between "real journalists" (those who work for major media corporations, like themselves) and fake, irresponsible posers who are independent (such as WikiLeaks and Brown).

In fact, just this week, the Dallas Observer wrote about the Brown case and tried to distinguish him from Real Journalists, saying this:

Even if Brown did some journalism -- and he did -- does that automatically make him a journalist? And does his prosecution "underscore the threat to journalists" from the federal government, as his legal defense team argues? Maybe, but Brown is not the Associated Press. His code of ethics seems a bit too malleable and ill-defined.

That's why they're so outraged by what was done to AP but remained mostly silent when journalists like WikiLeaks and Brown have been persecuted for their journalism. At some point, they're hopefully realize that attacks on marginalized journalists lay the groundwork for attacks on them.

The good news; because of reader generosity here, Brown has raised well over $20,000 and has been able to retain some of the best and most passionate criminal defense lawyers in the country.

I can notice on this forum Glenn that the questions that are being asked are long winded and frivolous, do you think someone you may know is making sure you have the right questions to answer?

The Guaridan's new program enables people to upvote or downvote the questions based on quality. I'm answering the questions in the order of most points, which means answering the ones readers here like best.

It's not a perfect system since questions posted earlier will likely get more votes than ones posted later, but it's still the best way to do it, I think.

I'm not answering all of them: some of them are just too complex to answer in a format like this, require too much time to address meaningfully. But I am going in the order they appear.

How do the medical personnel that operate in Gitmo still have their licenses to practice medicine when we consider that force-feeding is internationally recognized as torture? Has the Press been active in pointing out the culpability of the medical and mental health professions?

I asked this question of Repreive (Clive Stafford Smith represents several detained men) and was told that it is difficult to determine who is doing the feeding since medical personel remove their id. What they are doing is contrary to their hippocratic oath, and may be considerd torture, but they are also military personel and feel they must obey orders. Obama has sent additional medical people to Gitmo because of the hunger strike, saying he does not want them to die.

Naso Gatric feeding tubes are commonplace in skilled nursing facilities and convalescent hospitals around the country. Obviously in these situations it is done with the permission of the family but certainly not always with the consent of the patient. I am personally appalled by the forced feeding of the guantanimo bay victims and would resign in protest if I were a medical professional working there. A naso gastric feeding tube however is a common medical practice often administered to Alzheimer patients against their will (with the consent of family or legal guardian).

<a hrf="http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/05/08/3387631/guantanamo-medical-providers-face.html#.UYt93Xyi__w.twitter">Guantánamo medical providers face dilemma; Albert J. Shimkus,Jr.; Opinion; Miami Herald; 5/8/13[Albert J. Shimkus, Jr., a professor of national-security affairs at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., is the former commanding officer and chief surgeon for both of the Naval Hospital at Guantánamo Bay and Joint Task Force 160, which administered healthcare to detainees. ]

It is time to stop placing our dedicated military healthcare providers who serve in Guantánamo in the middle of a national security dilemma. It is not possible for the military healthcare professional to ethically serve both detainee patients and the state in the unique circumstances presented by Guantánamo. The individual human-rights of a rational detainee, including the right to die if he so chooses, should not be subordinated to the interests of the state. […]

"On many occasions in the past prisoners have been force-fed by feeding tube when they went on hunger strike. It has been prohibited since 1975 by the Declaration of Tokyo of the World Medical Association, provided that the prisoner is "capable of forming an unimpaired and rational judgment".

How do other journalists react to you? I find it very frustrating that most journalists seem to be doing nothing more than regurgitating information handed down to them. In your experience are they brainwashed by their left/right ideology or am I paranoid?

It varies widely from the highly supportive and complimentary to the highly contemptuous - as it should.

I consider the journalist class more or less the equivalent of the political class in so many ways, including the fact that I see them as a major source of power and influence and thus needing to be checked with extreme amounts of adversarial force, which I try my best to provide.

Obviously, when you do that, you won't always make friends. You'll often make enemies. That's perfectly OK with me. If a journalist isn't making powerful enemies, then they aren't doing their job.

See here for what David Halberstam said in 2005 about what his proudest moment in journalism was.

I find it very frustrating that most journalists seem to be doing nothing more than regurgitating information handed down to them. In your experience are they brainwashed by their left/right ideology or am I paranoid?

Regurgitating the claims of government officials is, for many, the best careerist path. It makes friends of high government officials, which means they are chosen to get "scoops" as rewards. Having close relationships with high government officials makes them seem in the eyes of their peers to be important and well-connected. And it's rarely controversial in corporate circles (which is where they work) to simply parrot the government line.

It's always been the case that people can advance themselves by serving power. Every royal court has hordes of courtiers and servants doing exactly that. That's what they are.

Why did the DOJ subpoena the records for Hartford and not, say New York City? And is there reason to assume that because of a program of constant surveillance, the DOJ knew which 20 journalists or phone lines to look at? That is, the media is objecting that this DOJ request is broad. I think that it may be narrow in order to get all the available evidence.

Why did the DOJ subpoena the records for Hartford and not, say New York City?

That's a big mystery. I don't think anyone has provided a convincing answer to this. But this is something we obviously should know.

And is there reason to assume that because of a program of constant surveillance, the DOJ knew which 20 journalists or phone lines to look at? That is, the media is objecting that this DOJ request is broad. I think that it may be narrow in order to get all the available evidence.

The DOJ has been investigating this leak for awhile, so that's presumably how they got the cell phone and other numbers for the targeted AP journalists. But it just shows how invasive they're being.

I've yet to hear a single convincing claim for how this leak harmed national security. The New York Times editorial page today did a good job debunking that assertion.

How can we end our relentless addiction to war? I am an American who is over 60, and my country has been at war my whole life. Do you see a way we can put an end to war before it puts an end to us?

I think the key will be once Americans start realizing all the things they are forced to sacrifice of value to continue to fuel and enable Endless War. At some point, they'll question why they're being forced to give up Social Security and Medicare benefits and any vestiges of privacy so that the US can continue to fight Middle East wars and give billions in "aid" to our "allies" in that region.

The Vietnam war ended because your generation took to the streets. The nation did not support it. Do you see anything close to that happening now? Where's the outrage? The overwhelming majority of Americans are OK with the way things are. Welcome to the minority.

The DoJ says it was justified in obtaining AP reporters' phone records secretly in order to preserve the "integrity" of the investigation. But, reportedly, the records were in the hands of a telephone company, not AP, and phone companies have a history of cooperating with government data snatches. What do you think of the DoJ argument?

The DoJ says it was justified in obtaining AP reporters' phone records secretly in order to preserve the "integrity" of the investigation. But, reportedly, the records were in the hands of a telephone company, not AP, and phone companies have a history of cooperating with government data snatches. What do you think of the DoJ argument?

Precisely. So many of the DOJ's self-defenses are totally incoherent. They're only supposed to avoid notifying the media ahead of time if doing so is necessary to preserve the "integrity" of the investigation: meaning that there's a danger of having the evidence destroyed if the media target is notified.

Here, as you point out, the logs were in the hands of the phone companies, not AP. There was no danger that they would be destroyed. Why couldn't AP be notified so they could go to a court and get a judicial ruling on the propriety of these subpoenas. Why couldn't they negotiate with AP over their scope?

Those records aren't going anywhere. The DOJ so clearly violated their own regulations.

It's inexcusable, and indicative of the way that even human rights groups that do good work have become increasingly frightened of/accommodationist to the US government. A former Clinton aide was selected to head Amnesty International USA:

http://www.voltairenet.org/article171951.html

Even when they're basically good people, this kind of incestuous relationship to the US government is exactly what human rights groups - of all places - should avoid.

To what extent do you believe the promotion of party and regime 'loyalists' to positions of authority at the cabinet and departmental level, as opposed to 'professionals' with a proven career record of bipartisan performance, plays a role in the generally perceived incompetence, misdeeds and abuses within the Obama administration?

To what extent do you believe the promotion of party and regime 'loyalists' to positions of authority at the cabinet and departmental level, as opposed to 'professionals' with a proven career record of bipartisan performance, plays a role in the generally perceived incompetence, misdeeds and abuses within the Obama administration?

I think it's a factor, but as we see with hacks like Harold Koh and Marty Lederman, even those who are regarded as professionals get intoxicated by proximity to power and quickly turn into eager tools for it.

Any thoughts on the corporate, neo-Lochner drift on the US Supreme Court? And Elena Kagan's role in this? I'm thinking of the latest (Monsanto) ruling, as well as Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Shell, and the earlier Janus Capital and Citizens United rulings. Implications are both for domestic policy and -- in Kiobel and the upcoming Daimler Chrysler v. Bauman -- for international human rights law.

Any thoughts on the corporate, neo-Lochner drift on the US Supreme Court? And Elena Kagan's role in this? I'm thinking of the latest (Monsanto) ruling, as well as Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Shell, and the earlier Janus Capital and Citizens United rulings. Implications are both for domestic policy and -- in Kiobel and the upcoming Daimler Chrysler v. Bauman -- for international human rights law.

It's hard to blame Kagan for writing an opinion in which the entire court unanimously joined. That said, my problem with Kagan from the start was that, more than anything else, she was (quite like Obama) an institutionalist: someone who above all else identifies with institutions of power. It's still too early for either side of that Kagan debate to claim vindication, but some of the early signs are obviously not good, especially when - and this was key for me - one assesses the choice in the context of John Paul Stevens, whom she replaced.

Sam Harris repeatedly states that you don't believe that extreme religious beliefs have ANY causal relationship to the behaviors of those who hold them. I know you've stated otherwise, but could you type a few sentences speaking to how you see extreme religious views functioning within the wider context of the "terrorism" question?

Sam Harris repeatedly states that you don't believe that extreme religious beliefs have ANY causal relationship to the behaviors of those who hold them. I know you've stated otherwise, but could you type a few sentences speaking to how you see extreme religious views functioning within the wider context of the "terrorism" question?

I made expressly clear in the column I wrote about him that of course religious fundamentalism - like extreme nationalism - can play a role in justifying and fueling violence. I elaborated on that in response to a question above.

The Bill of Rights gurantees due process and other basic rights for all persons, not just Americans. I have seen you of all people making a distinction, albeit from practical reasons, I think. Most or all of MSM don't care to give the correct picture. I was expecting at least you will highlight the fact there is no difference between Americans and non-Americans as far as these rights are concerned.

The Bill of Rights gurantees due process and other basic rights for all persons, not just Americans. I have seen you of all people making a distinction, albeit from practical reasons, I think.

If you're talking about the Constitution in terms of how the Supreme Court has defined it, this is false. The Bill of Rights protects 2 classes of people against the US govt: (1) US citizens, no matter where they are, and (2) foreign nationals on US soil/on land under US control. Foreign nationals on foreign soil don't have recourse to the Constitution (which is why the Bush administration created Gitmo on foreign soil, a plan thwarted when the Supreme Court said that Gitmo is so under US control that it's deemed sovereign land, giving the detainees some constitutional rights).

What I have said is that as a political matter, there are dangers that arise from a government attacking its own citizens that don't apply when they attack foreign nationals. That doesn't make the latter less wrong than the former at all - it isn't - but it just raises different issues from a pragmatic/political perspective.

You've often responded to critiques of your focus on particular topics by hinting that, if you had the time, you would write about many other topics. Can you name a few and why you think they are important?

You've often responded to critiques of your focus on particular topics by hinting that, if you had the time, you would write about many other topics. Can you name a few and why you think they are important?

I get tons of emails about various prosecutions, rights abuses, punishments of whistleblowers, bad/dangerous laws proposed, important new books, inspiring activism, etc. that time constraints prevent me from learning about and writing about.